


Like the Sun

by athousandwinds



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-26
Updated: 2010-01-26
Packaged: 2017-10-06 17:43:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/56202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/athousandwinds/pseuds/athousandwinds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prince Charming turned out to be Prince Charmless, except for that <i>smile</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like the Sun

When she was little, Jackie dreamt - doesn't everyone? - of marrying Prince Charming and pink dresses and happily ever after. Of course, Charming turned out Charmless (but "Hello, Jacks" and that _smile_, oh God) and then he was neither, only clammy and dead.

She and Rose struggled - when hadn't they struggled? Bloody government - but it was worse now. Pete had taken money and lost it with a grin ("Don't worry, Jacks, it'll work out next time") but the others just took. And on bad nights she could feel his hand in hers, too cold to be alive, but she could hear his heartbeat pounding in her ears.

But then - Rose burned like the sun. It wasn't the kind of thought Jackie had, so she went on reading her daughter fairy tales (Little Red Riding Hood and the Three Little Pigs and always, always Prince Charming, even when she didn't mean to), but it was true. She saw Rose once, playing hopscotch on the asphalt in summer, and she couldn't believe how beautiful her child was, how she glowed like the heart of the sun.

Then Rose fell down and Jackie ran outside to kiss the grazes better.

Times change - or is it that time changes? - and Rose grows up and grows away. This new, confident woman is Rose Tyler and not Rose Tyler and still glows. Jackie wants Pete. Pete would have known what to do about aliens stealing their baby -

But she deals with it. She is Jacqueline Andrea Suzette Prentice Tyler, even if her own husband couldn't get it right, and not even the Doctor can stitch that.

She was eighteen when she met Pete Tyler, nineteen when she married him and twenty when he died, twenty when she drew his name around her like armour and battled the world for dole money, for council flats, for God-knows-what. She knew him for two years and it felt like twenty; she was without him for twenty years and it felt like two, the wound still fresh and raw if she poked at it.

It felt like two _days_ when she saw him again.

_"Hello, Jacks."_

There hadn't been a moment that wasn't worth this one. Not a single minute wasted. And even though she'd dreamt it, had Disney Princesses dancing in her imagination for years of childhood, you know what?

She really didn't care about that.


End file.
